Tag: Social media

X suffers from declining usage but you won’t hear that from Indonesians

NBC News has the stats from a few traffic monitoring companies showing the drop in usage and downloads of the former Twitter app.

In February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the U.S., down 18% from a year earlier, according to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm based in San Francisco. The U.S. user base has been flat or down every month since November 2022, the first full month of Musk’s owning the app, and in total it’s down 23% since then, Sensor Tower said. 

The numbers were nearly as bad worldwide, as daily active users on the mobile app fell to 174 million in February, down 15% from a year earlier, the firm said. The worldwide user base has been flat or down every month during Musk’s tenure began except one, when it grew slightly in October and then resumed falling, according to Sensor Tower. 

Other social media apps experienced modest increases in their worldwide user bases during the same period, according to the research, with Snapchat growing 8.8%, Instagram 5.3%, Facebook 1.5% and TikTok 0.5%. Those apps all experienced declines over that period in the U.S., but none was as steep as the decline on X. 

X had “the most material decline in active users compared to its peers,” Abe Yousef, a senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, wrote in a research report. 

The company also struggles to retain advertisers with 75% of the top 100 ceasing their spend on X. The kinds of ads you see on the site are now primarily cryptocurrency, AI apps, individuals promoting their own accounts, and other oddities.

While there’s no numbers shared for individual countries or markets, traffic and attention for the Indonesian market seems to remain high or at least visibly active, despite the exodus reported worldwide.

What’s happening in the US and most of the English speaking community doesn’t seem to affect the Indonesian speaking users who continue to post and have conversations on the platform.

Politics, entertainment, and daily life activities dominate the discourse in the market especially with the general election happening in February and the results only just announced on Wednesday. The local scene on X seems to remain healthy more than a year after the acquisition and just under a year after the platform was legally reestablished under X Corporation.

As the English speaking crowd slowly make their way to alternative platforms such as BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, and other platforms on the social web, the bulk of the Indonesian crowd are mostly sticking to Instagram and TikTok in addition to X itself and major brands such as Bank Mandiri, BCA, Mitsubishi, Grab, Warner Music, and Indosat, are still buying spots on X.

There’s little to no push factor that will drive them away from the platform and no amount of pull will convince them to make a move. Unless there’s an existential threat to their presence on X or to X itself, it’s extremely unlikely for Indonesians on the platform to switch to another. The majority, especially the younger demographics, are already on TikTok and Instagram anyway because they prefer video platforms, which leaves text based alternatives a niche.

Media Companies are Suckers for Punishments 

I don’t understand why the media keep insisting on posting to this platform when they themselves admit that traffic from social media links have been dropping, and especially on X, they don’t bring significant audience.

The disdain that Musk has over media companies, especially ones that don’t kowtow to his whims, as well as his calls to publish directly on his platform or be deprioritized, should warrant enough reasons for them to cease using the platform as a traffic funnel.

They are not welcomed nor do they gain anything from staying around. As if having article titles removed from posts was not enough of a sign that Musk isn’t keen on driving traffic to news sites.

There’s no shortage of options for content distribution these days so pulling back from one  isn’t going to make a lot of difference.

TV can be Educational but Social Media Likely Harms Mental Health

Many people equate screen time or gadget use with addiction to smoking because they’re perceived as bringing far more harmful effects on health than any benefit but I’m a strong believer of context and what people (including kids) consume or use on their screens matter so much more than just the use itself because these devices can help if used the right way.

Separately, kids and adults also need to learn about control and ways to respond to certain triggers to reduce harmful effects.

Zuckerberg Says Threads has Almost 100 Million Monthly Users

The reports of Threads’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Just under 100 million monthly users in three months since launch is one hell of a feat. 

Is the claim dubious? Anyone can certainly question that since they have yet to show additional information such as the highly coveted “unregretted minutes” a certain other billionaire CEO seems to prefer, but Business Insider was reporting just a week ago that Threads has 33 million daily active users so 100 million active users in a month does sound plausible.

But what about all those people who told us that Threads is a graveyard, that nothing is happening because their posts get no engagement? Well, are they the ones that logged in back in July or August once or twice and then return a few months later without posting anything in between? They have no idea what’s happening. How much interaction have they done in Threads, did they just post and expect responses or have they interacted with people? Have they been asking their friends and followers to check out the place and stick around for a while?

Threads have added so many features and functions between launch period and now that it’s become a full fledged social network that feels like it’s been around for years. 

Sure, search is still limited to certain languages and markets, there’s no trending list, no lists, and no proper analytics, but there are separate feeds for Following and For You, can easily swap between accounts, log in on the web, post voice notes, follow every account mentioned in a single post all at once (makes Follow Fridays easier), quote posts, see basic stats per post, see quote posts and likes, follow and get notified of updates to any post for 24 hours, you can edit your posts and replies within five minutes of posting, and so on.

It’s still missing an API, however, which prevents many organizations, institutions, public figures, and businesses from using it with their social media admin tools. Perhaps that’s a big reason people think they can’t use it yet, but at nearly 100 million monthly users, it’s not a place for people to jump back in after months of absence and 

ask if there’s anyone there, because it’s a thriving place.

That thing about the news? The one where Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said they’re not prioritizing or giving a leg up to news because they prefer people talk about other things? Yeah, that’s not a thing. News is absolutely what people share and talk about on Threads. Multiple major media organizations have found that Threads deliver far more traffic and engagement than expected.

Mosseri also reiterated today that they are working on landing in the EU as well as establishing early connections to ActivityPub and therefore federating or connecting to platforms like WordPress, Mastodon, and micro.blog in the next few months, not to mention the all important trends list that people have been shouting about. 

There’s also evidence of more work already being done within the app but not yet ready for release, so while Threads may not be the place for real time updates yet, it is definitely sprinting forward.

Meta follows Twitter in charging for the coveted blue internet checkmark

Weeks after someone saw code inside the Instagram app referring to paid verification, Meta today formally announced their latest copycat feature, the paid blue checkmark.

Like pretty much every major product that Meta offers, the blue checkmark originally came from somewhere else, in this case, Twitter. Now that Twitter is charging for it, Meta can’t resist doing the same but they added their own twist.

Just like Twitter’s version, you’ll get the all important blue badge, increased visibility and reach, and exclusive features, but you’ll also get personal customer support, something that Twitter can’t offer because Elon fired everyone already.

Meta’s checkmarks are more expensive than Twitter’s. Even more expensive than paying for Netflix, Disney+, or HBO GO. One month of Meta Verification costs the same as Disney+ Hotstar for one entire year. Think about that.

Twitter charges US$11 per month from mobile apps and $8 from the web, while Meta charges $15 from mobile apps and $11 from the web.

Meta’s paid checkmarks are available only in Australia and New Zealand for now, though, so they make you crave for it with the oh so good FOMO and envy brewing up inside of you.

But my favorite one, though, is Tumblr. For a one time payment of $8 you get not one but two badges all at once and if that’s not enough, you can buy and display up to 12 pairs of badges! They now come in all rainbow colors too, not just blue, so it’s so much fancier and cooler because you can pick and choose which colors you want. You pay once and you keep it forever. Or until you delete your account. Love those guys.

Who Wants to Pay for a Checkmark?

Hey, look who’s taking after one of the most unhinged individuals to ever run a company and dipping their toes into making identity verification a commercial product?

The entire point of account verification is all about confirming that the profile account represents who it claims to be. The part about having to be a notable person or organization was a side effect of the notion that only public figures needed to have their account verified to avoid impersonation.

The fact is anyone or any organization could be impersonated for any reason as notability needs not be on a national, let alone global, level.

If Meta is truly aiming to drive revenue out of account verification then it’s not about notability anymore. They should just make it like Tumblr and charge it for kicks because nobody knows if you’re a dog, who cares as long as you pay? The initial roll out of the revamped Twitter Blue went exactly as everyone outside of the company would expecte.

If account verification is about identity they can do it by enabling rel=“me” by way of a website that the person or entity controls.

The rel=“me” identity verification attribute is used to establish a link between a website and a person’s or organization’s profile on another site. This will assert that the entity owns or runs both the website and the profile on the other site.

Basically it lets other websites or services know that you are who you say you are without having to submit further proof of identity such as your government ID and saves them from the arduous process of manually verifying every profile created on their service and saves you from the repetitive process at each online service.

However, because there’s no central authority that actually verifies this attribution it can create a single point of failure if the reference website gets hijacked, leading to security issues such as identity fraud.

Between the lack of central authority and chaos through impersonation accounts, essentially it comes down to which problem they are more willing to deal with. And if say it costs $5 a month to have a check mark next to your name, that’s potentially hundreds millions maybe billions of dollars of additional annual revenue. Who’s gonna say no to that?

Before you know it every corporate social network will charge for a check mark and you’ll be spending more per month than your streaming subscriptions combined.

Twitter ends all free public API, switches to paid access

Twitter to end free access to its API in Elon Musk’s latest monetization push

“Putting a cap on free API usage could also stop firms working around detecting the spread of misinformation on Twitter.”

That right there is the money shot. Misinformation is much more freely distributed today on the platform than at any time last year without the full trust and safety team and council working to suppress them. Then again the definition of what constitutes misinformation seems to have changed within the company.

The other point is why would any self respecting developer jump right back in after being suddenly shut out without prior or even any official communication on the sudden change of policy?

Anybody who still trusts the company to do anything right must be kidding themselves.

If anything, third party developers might be even more inclined now, if not highly encouraged, to develop for other platforms that offer free or open source API *cough*Mastodon*cough*.

Mastodon isn’t the only open platform in play that takes advantage of the ActivityPub protocol. There are plenty others such as Friendica, Pleroma, CalcKey, etc., that connect through this protocol, which means the playground for software developers and designers is wide open. Even WordPress, Tumblr, and Flickr have ActivityPub on the roadmap for this year.

There’s far more interest now on the federated networks or the open social web than ever before and networks that stay closed are going to miss out.

Social Media Diversity Gets Reinvigorated

I think I’m pretty happy that one of the major things that came out of 2022 was the implosion of Twitter which opened up a whole range of other destinations for the social web that may have always been there but saw little attention.

The social space is exciting again with people flocking to places like Mastodon, Post, and Tumblr and the federated space is getting far more attention than ever. 

In a lot of ways it seemed to have brought back some of the web development energy of the 2000s as people began to rethink what’s possible.

Much of the development back then was fueled by VC money which ultimately halted many innovations in pursuit of growth and dominance so it remains to be seen how this new energy is going to be funded. I have doubts that crowdfunding will be able to generate the necessary resources without being supported by other forms. 

What that would be I guess is something that we’ll eventually find out in the coming years if the stance against capitulating to VC demands becomes more widely adopted.

Post.News is being hailed as the saner Twitter for news folks but has no resources to run it properly

The news social network was founded by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin shortly after he left the company in early 2021. The startup is being thrusted to the surface and forced itself to launch far earlier than expected thanks to Twitter’s dismantling from within, so it’s reasonable to expect many things not working, not available, or looked patched up.

NYU Professor and podcasting celebrity Scott Galloway is an investor on the site and has managed to get his podcasting partner Kara Swisher and plenty other Twitter big names to not only join but also promote the site.

However, there are concerns over the fundamentals of the site, which may or may not change in the future, but may alarm people regardless. The Washington Post’s Engineering Lead for Privacy and Security Compliance Aram Zucker-Scharff ran up quite a thread of the ones he’s come across.

Post.News makes publishers syndicate their stories to the site or publish directly there for them to be able to receive payments for articles. This means they don’t (yet?) actually act as a paywall partner with publishers and don’t direct traffic to the original site. 

I’m on the fence about creating placeholder accounts for the actual news publishers but it’s incredible that you currently have to pay to read your own article that you publish there and they’re charging for wire stories that are freely accessible on the publisher’s website. 

Aram said Post.News gives him similar vibes to Medium. There are several differences, though. Medium started with the blogging angle and charges a monthly subscription fee while Post started with the Twitter angle and charges fees per article.

Veteran tech journalist Dan Gillmor isn’t vibing with Post.News. He said, 

Major Twitter influencers are pushing a supposed replacement called Post. It may be great (I’m not allowed to use it so far) but it’s yet another proprietary, closed (in terms of interoperability), centralized social network. 

 Great for the A list and vCs. Not great for me.

If I leave Twitter, which is plainly feeling the effects of too little engineering and too much right-wing poison, it will be for something like Mastodon (I’m http://mastodon.social/@dangillmor there).  It will NOT be yet another centralized place where, someday, a sociopath CEO rules.

What I think about social media and the upcoming Indonesian elections

The Australian Associated Press emailed me asking my views on the role of social media in this year’s Indonesian elections and the role of digital natives as first times voters.

My long answer below

I don’t think social media can make or break a candidate by itself. Presence on social networks certainly help raise their profiles but it also opens them up to attacks.

While use of social media in Indonesia seems massive, the majority of things I see about this upcoming election and even Indonesian elections in the past, is about making fun of elections and candidates.

The primary driver of political campaigns remains television. The influence of TV is still significantly much larger than the likes of Twitter or Facebook but TV and other “traditional” media also take their news from social media, therefore social media presence and activities can help spearhead the image or intention that the candidates want to project. Television can amplify what is being said or what is happening on social media.

Look at the publicity on Aburizal Bakrie’s trip to the Maldives for example. That trip from four or so years ago first made the rounds on YouTube and Twitter a few days ago and within hours it was picked up by television as well as online news media and became a national talking point by the end of the day.

That being said, conversations on social media are also being driven by what is happening on TV so you have that full circle of coverage and talking points from both media amplifying each other until the masses are tired of the subject and move on to the next topic.

Another example is Farhat Abbas. The one time presidential hopeful and legislative candidate was on Twitter until recently, perhaps to deliver his campaign promises, to create a more popular image of himself, and to address people who talked about him. Ultimately it was a failed experiment because everyone saw right through him. His actions that had been reported across all media were amplified and ridiculed on Twitter so much that he eventually shut down his @farhatabbaslaw account, although as it turns out he reactivated it several days later.

The success of Jokowi and Ahok may have been driven by social media but to my eyes, the real driver was the relentless coverage on TV and newspapers about their campaigns and activities. Perhaps the final kicker was the flashmob at Bundaran HI shortly prior to the gubernatorial election day in 2012.

What’s good about this election is that the rise of software developers taking advantage of Pemilu API, which is the publicly available access to the KPU data about all of the legislative candidates and their parties. Spurred on by Perludem, these mobile applications and websites may not be massively popular but they provide far more useful and easier to access information so that the voters are better informed about their options.

The digital natives, in other words, people who are far more comfortable with the internet, mobile devices, and appications, most of which happen to be first time voters, apparently are increasingly looking for election information from the internet. They will scrounge news and info not just from social media but also from news websites and other sources including applications. It’s up to them to decide how to filter and process all that information.

Google is known to have provided a central repository of election news and information for other countries in the past and it’s just a matter of time before they launch an Indonesian version of it. It’s a bit of a shame that they haven’t so far with the election being so close now, just a matter of days. – Read on Path.